Business Management
Change is any alteration of the status quo. Organisational change is where the internal elements of an organisation – personal, structures, culture, technology, work processes, policy and procedure are subject to alteration on an on-going basis.
Organisations need to change because of changes in the operating and macro-environment. As change is inevitable and continuous organisations must be proactive, respond to the pressures and introduce change in order to survive, achieve their objectives and maintain a competitive edge.
The pressure for change comes from the macro-environment. The macro-environment is the broader factors which affect and organisation, some of which include political, social, geographic and technological factors. These pressures come from outside the organisation and the organisation has no control over the macro-environment. The pressures cause the organisation to change and adapt so objectives can be achieved. In order for any change to be successful an effective change management process should be followed.
An effective change management process that could be followed when implementing change is the one identified by Kurt Lewin. There are three phases in this theory, and it begins with the preparation for change. It involves changing individuals in the organisation. Changing their attitudes towards the organisational change. This is called the unfreezing phases. Phase two is the movement phase. This phase involves changing the organisational structure – reporting relationships, work design. The third phase is the refreezing and evaluation of the change in operation and maintaining the momentum of change.
Strategies that contribute to effective change management especially when there is resistance to change include support programs that retrain employees so adapting to the new change is not so daunting. Another is employee feedback – two-way communication between the manager and employee to express concerns or ideas. Managers act as change agents, they initiate change or make change happen in a systematic process that can be broken down into steps, that allows workers to understand what is happening as each stage proceeds. Communication must be very good.
These strategies are that they can all be successful as long as management itself promotes a positive attitude to change throughout the organisation especially when organisations are competing in a world of globalisation.
Globalisation is the expansion of international trade and communication across countries generally as a result of the removal of trade restrictions within countries. Globalisation is important because businesses entering new markets are being challenged by new competitors. Innovation and creativity are required to deal with changes in competitors, marketing strategies and in dealing with the development of new products more frequently.
Global corporations have production operations in many countries around the world. Some of the largest corporations have operations so widely spread that they are virtually ‘stateless’. An example on the growth of a global business is News Corp. It is a company that has thrived on globalisation. In less than a decade, this media group has grown from a [next page]